If you knew Your whole family would die tomorrow, From a senseless war not of your making, Would you wage peace, For just one day, To keep your heart, From needlessly breaking? If I knew Next week would poison rivers, the air, Turned toxic by corporate dumping, pollution, Would I wage peace, For just one week, Use my money instead, For a “Greener” solution? If we knew Plants and animals would die next month, Climate Change pushing them past the brink, Would we wage peace, For just one month, Wage peace for the planet, Could we do it, you think? You, I, We, Us, What will it take to make us care? A day? A week? A month? A year? Whole continents burning, unbreathable air, Fishless oceans, concrete leaving all lands bereft, Endless bodies, choked rubble from War’s bloody fare, By the time we wage peace, who and what will be left?
©2021 C.L.R.
All rights reserved
The BeZine 
There were many levels that I appreciated in your poem, Corina. Firstly the way you used rhyme sparingly, almost incidentally for most of the piece, then you cranked it up in the last stanza, as if to give it crescendo, bring the message home with some drama. I can’t describe the effects better, but it is something I try to do myself. Poetry should never be a ditty, for me, but give rise to that effect, even when it’s easy to see what the poem is about, it can still surprise.
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